


It's Okay

by bgaydocrimes



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Miscarriage, Spoilers for S2, a little bit of feels, a tiny bit of sex, about on par with what you'd see on the show, don't you just want to shake Judy and tell her she's not a bad person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24327802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bgaydocrimes/pseuds/bgaydocrimes
Summary: Judy has a problem with saying it's okay when it isn't.
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 24
Kudos: 210





	It's Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh I just have so many Jen/Judy feelings? And you know there's a dearth of fic for a pairing when I throw my shit out there. Lmk what you think and also just come talk to me about them because fuck, you guys.
> 
> Also I wrote this after two edibles and it's unbetaed so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

Other kids may have had dads, but ever since Judy Hale could remember it had just been her and her mom. Eleanor Hale had taken on the sacrifice (that was the word she always used) of being a single parent three years ago when Judy’s dad left because the toddler was “too much”.

Judy tried so hard not to be too much for her mom, too.

It was late on a school night and Judy was parched. She wasn’t supposed to get out of bed at night but after listening at the crack of her bedroom door and hearing only silence she figured it was safe. In the kitchen she stood on her tiptoes to reach the faucet, filling the glass quickly. She drank in deep gulps and nearly choked when the front door opened suddenly. Judy froze, making eye contact with her mother in the doorway.

“Mom?”

A split second and the furious look materializing on her mother’s face was all it took for that sick feeling to pool in her stomach and she felt like the water she just drank might be on its way back up.

Behind her mom, a man’s voice sounded.

“What the fuck? You have a kid?”

Judy clutched the water glass tight and stood rooted in place as her mother bargained with the stranger in the entryway. From the tone of the voices she could tell they were upset. She had been so good lately, not getting in the way or leaving her toys around the house, following her mom’s ever-changing rules and keeping her happy. Judy could feel hot tears pooling in her eyes at the thought of disappointing her mother again. Finally, the exchange ended and the door slammed behind the man as he left. When her mom turned on her, Judy felt her stomach flip. Eleanor’s eyes had that reddened and unfocused look that meant she wasn’t really there. Judy loved her mom but when she looked like this it scared her. She seemed like a different person like this.

“I’m sorry, mama! I’m sorry!” Judy blurted, trying to convey her guilt even though she didn’t understand what had just happened or why it was so bad.

“God damnit, Judith Ann” her mother seethed quietly. “Why can’t you just shut your mouth and do what you’re told? How many times do I have to tell you to stay in your fucking room at night? What was so goddamned important that you needed to be out here right now?”

The five year old’s lower lip trembled as she held in her sobs, the glass in her hand slipping from her grasp and shattering against the linoleum at her feet.

“Pick that up!” Eleanor pointed to the shards scattered across their small kitchen. Judy complied, tears streaming down her face as her mom shook her head and left the room.

After Judy had delicately picked up the glass pieces, swept the floor, and thrown all evidence of her clumsiness in the trash, her mom returned dressed in pajamas and looking softer. She knelt down to Judy’s level and wiped the tears from her small cheeks. Eleanor’s pupils were still large and unfocused but the tightness in her expression had relaxed.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. See, this is why you need to follow Mommy’s rules, right? When you do what you’re supposed to you don’t make me angry. I wouldn’t need to yell if you would just stay out of sight like I’ve asked you, right baby?”

Judy nodded.

“I know, Mama I’m sorry. I’ll be better a-and I can be good.”

“That’s my good girl. I’m sorry I got so mad; it’s just hard when you don’t listen to me, baby.”

“That’s ok.”

“Thanks, baby. I love you.”

“Love you Mama.”

—

Seven short years later and Judy was twelve and starting to really understand what it meant to be her own person. People wanted things from her, expected things from her. She remembered when it was just her and her mom and wished desperately for that simplicity back again, as tumultuous as it was.

They were telling her she needed to “testify” and she didn’t even really know what it meant except that she was expected to tell a bunch of men and a social worker all sorts of things about her mom she felt like she shouldn’t. She was dredging up memories that they’d had an unspoken agreement not to discuss since the last time she’d asked. Sometimes moms need to blow off some steam. Sometimes they have strange men over every night while their daughters hide in their bedrooms. Sometimes moms leave after breakfast and don’t come back for a week and a half when the cupboards are bare and Judy’s been eating canned green beans with a spoon for two days because she couldn’t find where the cash was hidden. Judy knew it was her fault, that if she were easier to deal with or more grown up then her mom wouldn’t have to go away. So she didn’t bring it up anymore because hearing how much she disappointed the only constant in her world was close to unbearable.

In the end they set up a video camera and record a tape of her answering their questions.

There were _so many_ questions and her head was still spinning as the social worker guided her back to the car. Judy felt that bad feeling that she learned so many years ago to push down, the sick festering sensation that cropped up when she knew she’d done something that would hurt her mother. She dug her knuckles repeatedly into her thighs, a recent habit she developed when she realized pain helped ground her. She did a bad thing. She was a bad kid. She deserved to feel this hurt.

The week after recording her testimony, she had her first supervised visit with her mother in a month. As soon as she walked into the small office, again with the social worker at her side, she knew it was as bad as she’d feared. Her mom’s face was blank. She regarded Judy as if she were a stranger, and Judy knew that her transgressions weren’t going to be forgiven easily.

“Hi, Mom” she whispered, trying to convey the depths of her contrition. “I miss you; I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby. Come here, sit down by me.” Eleanor plied with narrowed eyes.

Judy sat next to her mother on the worn leather couch and hugged her, tears of shame already gathering in her eyelashes.

“Mom, I didn’t mean to tell them all those things but they just kept asking questions and I got really overwhelmed and then I couldn’t stop talking and -”

“Judy, honey, I know you don’t know any better.” Eleanor supplied with a smile that only felt half-faked.

And then, too quiet for the social worker to hear -

“Really it’s your father’s fault I ended up with an idiot of a daughter” she added under her breath, rolling her eyes.

Judy winced at that word. It was a favorite of her mother’s and she’d been on the receiving end of it more often than not. But it was true.

“Sorry, Jude. Just feeling a little testy lately.”

“It’s okay,” Judy assured her. “I wish this wasn’t happening. I don’t know what to do without you, Mom.”

“Well, you’d better come visit your favorite mom in jail. Least you can do since you’re the one who’s putting me in there, hmm?”

Judy’s face crumpled. “Mama, I -”

“Relax sweetie, always the sensitive one. It’s just a joke. Gotta laugh to keep from crying, right?”

Judy smiled past the lump in her throat.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Sorry, baby.” Eleanor offered with badly hidden insincerity.

“It’s okay.”

—

It was a day after her third miscarriage when Judy was still cramping and couldn’t do much more than fill her pillow with salty tears that Steve had let slip how he really felt about her infertility. Judy had been having that awful feeling again lately; the one that reminded her that she was never quite good enough, that she didn’t deserve good things. She always worried that sooner or later Steve would realize he was too good for her; would begin to resent her for her inability to carry out even the most basic biological imperative.

He had been significantly more detached this time than after their first two lost pregnancies. He had gone from doting, caring fiancé at her bedside to the man who stopped by their room to bring pain meds and water on a schedule.

_Yeah, well? I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask for my wife to be barren._

Barren. A hostile womb. She never could do anything right, could she? Even the one thing she wanted, the one thing she knew could fill the hole in her chest that she could never quite name. She couldn’t manage to provide a safe home for their babies.

Steve was right to hate her.

That day at noon he brought a plate of food and some vicodin and she knew he had something to stay when he waited around after, fiddling with his watch on the dresser.

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this with you, Judy. It’s killing me.”

She felt her blood turn icy in her veins. She was killing him.

“I’m sorry. I know. I want to just… be better. I’m trying.” Judy whispered.

“I’m just so- I thought this was it. I thought maybe this time would be different and things could finally go my way for once.”

Steve sat on the bed next to her and sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

Judy crumbled and pulled his head to her shoulder while she cried, tears leaking silent paths down her cheeks. She was the cause of this. Her fiancé, who had loved her despite her quirks and deficits; who put up with her “too much” and her “not enough”, was suffering because of her. She had failed him and she didn’t know how to make it right.

So she rocked him back and forth like she never would her own baby.

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

—

After living together for months, Jen and Judy had settled into a comfortable routine. Judy still lived in the guesthouse and cooked dinner most nights, and afterward the pair shared a bottle of wine out back more often than not. Their relationship had changed after Steve’s death. Judy never asked what Steve had said that night that made Jen seem to forgive her, but there was a clear unspoken absolution in Jen’s actions toward Judy since.

One week after burying Steve’s body, before the kids are home from school, Jen finds Judy in the kitchen sobbing, hands full of the broken remnants of Jen’s favorite vase.

“Jesus Christ, Judy. What are you doing?!” Jen reached for Judy’s wrist, stopping her from picking up any more glass. She could see blood oozing from Judy’s fist cupping the shards.

“I’m sorry Jen, the vase- I’m so sorry.” Judy choked out.

“Jude, fuck, I don’t care about the stupid vase - I care about YOU.”

Jen’s tone softened.

“C’mere, here, put the glass down on the counter honey.”

“I don’t want to be an inconvenience,” Judy whispered, “you’ve done so much for me. And I owe you... so much. And instead I’m breaking things and making a mess of your kitchen, and-“ Judy’s voice crescendoed as panic bled back into her tone.

“Honey, please. Just- just breathe. Everything’s ok.” Jen’s maternal instincts reared in full force. She held Judy’s arms by the wrists, pulling them gingerly out from her sides while their foreheads met.

“You don’t owe me anything Jude. We’re okay, just like this.” Jen whispered.

Judy’s tears streamed silently down her face as Jen sat her on a kitchen stool while she took care of the glass, swept the floor, then retrieved a first aid kit so she could clean and bandage her hands. Nobody had ever been so tender with Judy and her heart lodged in her throat, preventing her from speaking.

Jen placed a soft, maternal kiss on Judy’s forehead before leading her back to the guest house and laying down, cradling the younger woman in the crook of her arm.

In the stillness of the afternoon, the pair watched the pool’s sparkling reflections on the guest house ceiling together.

“It’s okay, Judy. You’re okay.”

—

Weeks after Jen’s retracted confession and their hit and run, Jen and Judy got a weekend to themselves. Both women had been pulled in so many emotional and physical directions over the last year that they needed a few days of quiet respite. They began on Friday afternoon by gallery-hopping in the center of town before getting high on the beach at sunset, just as they had early on in their friendship. After the shared joint and spectating what ended up being a mesmerizing beach volleyball game, the pair decided to head home.

They stumbled, giggly and high, into the house and through the foyer.

“God, I love the boys but it really is nice to have the house to ourselves for once.” Jen called back to Judy who had split off to the kitchen as Jen dropped heavily onto the living room sofa.

Judy’s head popped out from inside the pantry.

“Oh my god, I know. I’m so high thank god they’re not here.”

Jen let out the closest sound to a giggle Judy had ever heard from her, clutching a throw pillow to her chest before craning her neck to look over the back of the couch.

“Jude, what are you doing back there?”

“Finding this!” Judy waved a red box over her head. “I know you’re starving and I stashed a box of Hen’s Cheez-Its back there last week” she sashayed exaggeratedly toward Jen, brandishing her prize.

“Oh my god, you’re my hero.” Jen grinned.

.

An hour later, full of Cheez-Its and sparkling water, Jen and Judy leaned back with their feet propped on the coffee table. In comfortable silence, their eyes found each other’s across the back of the couch where their heads rested. Judy smiled lazily and linked their fingers together on the cushion between them. She relished the ease with which Jen now accepted her physical affection; it was a meaningful development in their growing friendship.

They had stared at each other for so long that it felt like slow motion when they finally moved towards each other in sync, lips meeting in an electric arc.

The kiss felt unreal, like it was happening on another planet. Some of that was probably the sativa but certainly the sizzling current of finally realized attraction was a bigger contributing factor.

The moment Jen’s tongue touched hers Judy felt her stomach seize and the first throb begin between her legs. She whimpered unintentionally into the kiss and Jen broke away at the sound.

“Fuck, Judy.”

“I know.”

“Are we doing this?”

Judy answered by initiating their second kiss. This one was slower, more deliberate, and it turned heated fast.

Before she knew what was happening, Judy was being pulled to straddle Jen’s lap where she let the blonde’s soft hands guide her hips. Soon they were both moaning into their kiss and grinding like teenagers on the couch. Judy was embarrassingly close just from the contact and the feeling of Jen’s lips, now painting a trail down her jaw toward her neck. By the time Jen sucked a hickey into the hollow at Judy’s throat Judy couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jesus Jen, please fuck me already”

Jen looked stunned at finally hearing words she had only imagined Judy speaking aloud. She quickly pinned Judy down on the couch by her wrists.

“Is this what you want?” Jen ployed coyly, tracing her fingers where Judy needed them most.

“Jen, mmph, yes. Just, yes.”

Jen’s fingers slid home and Judy found herself quickly losing control. In no time Judy was rocketing back towards a new precipice, gasping towards the ceiling as Jen’s touch became more forceful, demanding. She came muffling her moans against Jen’s shoulder.

They kissed slowly afterward while Judy caught her breath, fingers shaky and leg muscles spasming.

“Jude, I love you.”

As she pulled back from their kiss Judy saw the moment Jen realized what she’d said and how it carried a different meaning now that they’d crossed the lines of platonic friendship.

“Fuck - I’m sorry. Oh shit, I’m so sorry”.

Judy grinned.

“ _It’s okay._ I love you too, you idiot.”


End file.
